San Mateo High School administrators have instituted a new policy to lock up students’ cellphones. “Each school day, nearly 1,700 students place their devices in a Yondr pouch that closes with a proprietary lock,” reports NBC News. “School administrators unlock them at the end of the day.” The goal is to help students focus on the teacher and other students. From…
Tag: nbc
A New Idea For Fighting Rising Sea Levels: Iceberg-Making Submarines
To address the affects of global warming, a team of designers “propose building ice-making submarines that would ply polar waters and pop out icebergs to replace melting floes,” reports NBC News: “Sea level rise due to melting ice should not only be responded [to] with defensive solutions,” the designers of the submersible iceberg factory said in an animated video describing the…
Customs Computer Systems Down Nationwide, Causing Massive Delays At Airports
A computer issue is preventing U.S. immigration officials from processing arriving passengers at several airports across the country. “It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the problem at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, but the agency said it was investigating,” reports CNBC. Agents will be processing people manually until the systems are resolved. One Twitter user posted a video of a long…
After 8chan Possibly Linked To Another Shooting, Cloudflare CEO Defends Hosting It
The Guardian learned that the suspected mass shooter at an El Paso, Texas Walmart “is believed to also have posted a white nationalist rant on 8chan” — then interviewed the CEO of the company hosting it. If the connection between the 21-year-old suspect in Saturday’s massacre and the 8chan document is confirmed — and law enforcement sources told NBC News that…
Startup ScoopScoot Is Impounding Wayward E-Scooters In San Diego
McGruber shares a report from NBC News: In January, two San Diego businessmen launched a company, ScootScoop, that impounds e-scooters at the behest of private property owners. The company already has 4,500 of the e-scoooters packed in warehouses and garages. Most of the scofflaws pay their bounty, but a few of the half dozen or so e-scooter companies active in San…
Microsoft Warns of Political Cyberattacks, Announces Free Vote-Verification Software
“Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it would give away software designed to improve the security of American voting machines,” reports NBC News. Microsoft also said its AccountGuard service has already spotted 781 cyberattacks by foreign adversaries targeting political organizations — 95% of which were located in the U.S. The company said it was rolling out the free, open-source software product called…
Digital Marketer Mailchimp Bans Anti-Vaccination Content
Digital marketer Mailchimp has removed several anti-vaccination “activists” from its platform and will no longer provide services to newsletters that push anti-vaccination content. From a report: The move to block the anti-vaccination rhetoric follows similar actions by other tech companies and comes on the heels of increased pressure from public health advocates and lawmakers on digital platforms to curtail the spread…
Quest Diagnostics, One of the Biggest Blood Testing Providers In US, Says Up To 12 Million Patients May Have Had Info Stolen
JustAnotherOldGuy writes from a report via NBC New York: Did your personal, medical, or financial data just get hacked? Quest Diagnostics, one of the biggest blood testing providers in the country, warned Monday that nearly 12 million of its customers may have had personal, financial and medical information breached due to an issue with one of its vendors. In a filing…
California Approves Wide Power Outages To Prevent Wildfires
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: California regulators on Thursday approved allowing utilities to cut off electricity to possibly hundreds of thousands of customers to avoid catastrophic wildfires like the one sparked by power lines last year that killed 85 people and largely destroyed the city of Paradise. Utilities’ liability can reach billions of dollars, and after several…
India aims for 1st landing near moon’s south pole
The moon’s south pole has never been explored from the ground, but India’s new Chandrayaan-2 mission will attempt a 1st-ever landing there, with a rover, this September. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/india-mission-chandrayaan-2-moon-south-pole…